Close offers discretionary deal to HNWs

Close Brothers has introduced a discretionary fund management service for high-net-worth cli-ents that builds bespoke multi-asset portfolios for income, conservative, balanced and growth risk profiles.

The tailored portfolio service is available to clients with a minimum of £250,000 to invest and charges a flat fee of 1 per cent a year inclusive of dealing. It will hold most asset classes, including equities and fixed income directly. The portfolios are based on central asset allocation models but allow for client preferences and in-specie transfers.

Third-party funds such as hedge funds and emerging markets funds will be used for access to alternative asset classes and markets that are difficult to access directly.

Close says it prefers to hold assets directly as it feels this is the purest way that fund manager Deryck Noble-Nesbitt can express his convictions on asset classes. Noble-Nesbitt has managed the special situations fund and Beacon Investment fund since 2008, returning 267.9 per cent and 205.7 per cent respectively in the three years to Dec-ember 31, 2011, according to data from FE Analytics.

In Close Brothers’ view, investing mainly in third-party funds would lead to a dilution of Noble- Nesbitt’s convictions due to the diversification within the underlying portfolios. The firm sees the management charges applied by third-party funds as another disadvantage where it is possible to hold direct assets more cheaply.

Noble-Nesbitt can also hold exchange-traded funds for tactical purposes. But the main focus will be on longer-term conviction-led investment decisions rather than short-term plays.

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